This morning, I sat down at my desk and committed myself to focus on my homework for class. This is the final project, the culmination of our studies on publishing and distribution. In case you haven’t been following the blog for the past few weeks, I had to come up with a new project and publish it online, then focus on distributing and marketing it.

For most of my classmates, this involved starting a blog and writing their very first post. I’ve been an avid blogger for nearly a year, so the teacher encouraged me to raise the stakes and do something a little more involved.

So, I did just that.

I proposed to him that I wanted to do a short documentary to help draw attention to my newest blog, The Memoirs of a Yo-Yo Dieter, and that I planned to “put it all out there” in a very transparent, poignant, and visual way. He gave his approval for me to go for it.

So I did.

The Memoirs of a Yo-Yo Dieter: A Short Documentary

I know I’ve posted about this once before, but I am still floored by the outpouring of love and support. Today marks the 10th day since I posted it on YouTube, on both of my blogs, and promoted it on Twitter, and I’ve officially hit 190+ views. That floors me.

The evidence!

Sorry if the picture is a little small, but I wanted to show you what I see when I log into my Video Manager.

192 views.

13 likes.

WOW.

For my fellow vloggers or videographers, this may seem small; however, this was my first big leap into film making that wasn’t specifically required for the course and a lot of energy, passion, and emotion went into producing this short. I am forever indebted to Emily McCollum and Morgan Hopfensperger for their help with the cinematography and stage design and to Mandelyn Kilroy, Christina Jones, Delonna Remoutar, and many others for their love and support as I bared my soul to the world. I honestly don’t think I could have done this without my family and friends. I still get emotional when I think about the fact that I went through with this.

You know, school has done a lot more for me than just improve my grammar, my syntax, and my writing skills as a whole. School has CHANGED me. It has made me brave. It has made me confident. It has made me trust in the goodness of others. It has opened my eyes to creativity and expressiveness I could have never imagined lived dormant inside me. I owe so much to Full Sail University and I’m not even a graduate yet. I can’t wait to see what the last seven months of my BFA hold in store for me.

I’m forever humbled by the love and support of my family, my friends, my instructors, and – surprisingly – the kindness of strangers.

Optimistic that the world is a good place,

~ Victoria Elizabeth